Plutarch’s Lives

Comparison of Pelopidas with Marcellus

Translated by John Dryden
and
Revised by Arthur Hugh Clough

These are the memorable things I have
found in historians, concerning Marcellus and Pelopidas. Betwixt which
two great men, though in natural character and manners they nearly
resembled each other, because both were valiant and diligent, daring
and high-spirited, there was yet some diversity in the one point, that
Marcellus in many cities which he reduced under his power, committed
great slaughter; but Epaminondas and Pelopidas never after any victory
put men to death, or reduced citizens to slavery. And we are told, too,
that the Thebans would not, had these been present, have taken the
measures they did, against the Orchomenians. Marcellus’s exploits
against the Gauls are admirable and ample; when, accompanied by a few
horse, he defeated and put to fight a vast number of horse and foot
together, (an action you cannot easily in historians find to have been
done by any other captain,) and took their king prisoner. To which
honor Pelopidas aspired, but did not attain; he was killed by the
tyrant in the attempt. But to these you may perhaps oppose those two
most glorious battles at Leuctra and Tegyræ; and we have no statement
of any achievement of Marcellus, by stealth or ambuscade, such as were
those of Pelopidas, when he returned from exile, and killed the tyrants
at Thebes; which, indeed, may claim to be called the first in rank of
all achievements ever performed by secrecy and cunning. Hannibal was,
indeed, a most formidable enemy for the Romans but so for that matter
were the Lacedæmonians for the Thebans. And that these were, in the
fights of Leuctra and Tegyræ, beaten and put to fight by Pelopidas, is
confessed; whereas, Polybius writes, that Hannibal was never so much as
once vanquished by Marcellus, but remained invincible in all
encounters, till Scipio came. I myself, indeed, have followed rather
Livy, Cæsar, Cornelius Nepos, and, among the Greeks, king Juba, in
stating that the troops of Hannibal were in some encounters routed and
put to flight by Marcellus; but certainly these defeats conduced little
to the sum of the war. It would seem as if they had been merely feints
of some sort on the part of the Carthaginian. What was indeed truly and
really admirable was, that the Romans, after the defeat of so many
armies, the slaughter of so many captains, and, in fine, the confusion
of almost the whole Roman empire, still showed a courage equal to their
losses, and were as willing as their enemies to engage in new battles.
And Marcellus was the one man who overcame the great and inveterate
fear and dread, and revived, raised, and confirmed the spirits of the
soldiers to that degree of emulation and bravery, that would not let
them easily yield the victory, but made them contend for it to the
last. For the same men, whom continual defeats had accustomed to think
themselves happy, if they could but save themselves by running from
Hannibal, were by him taught to esteem it base and ignominious to
return safe but unsuccessful; to be ashamed to confess that they had
yielded one step in the terrors of the fight; and to grieve to
extremity if they were not victorious.

In short, as Pelopidas was never overcome in any battle, where
himself was present and commanded in chief, and as Marcellus gained
more victories than any of his contemporaries, truly he that could not
be easily overcome, considering his many successes, may fairly be
compared with him who was undefeated. Marcellus took Syracuse; whereas
Pelopidas was frustrated of his hope of capturing Sparta. But in my
judgment, it was more difficult to advance his standard even to the
walls of Sparta, and to be the first of mortals that ever passed the
river Eurotas in arms, than it was to reduce Sicily; unless, indeed, we
say that that adventure is with more of right to be attributed to
Epaminondas, as was also the Leuctrian battle; whereas Marcellus’s
renown, and the glory of his brave actions came entire and undiminished
to him alone. For he alone took Syracuse; and without his colleague’s
help defeated the Gauls, and, when all others declined, alone, without
one companion, ventured to engage with Hannibal; and changing the
aspect of the war first showed the example of daring to attack him.

I cannot commend the death of either of these great men; the
suddenness and strangeness of their ends gives me a feeling rather of
pain and distress. Hannibal has my admiration, who, in so many severe
conflicts, more than can be reckoned in one day, never received so much
as one wound. I honor Chrysantes also, (in Xenophon’s Cyropædia,) who,
having raised his sword in the act of striking his enemy, so soon as a
retreat was sounded, left him, and retired sedately and modestly. Yet
the anger which provoked Pelopidas to pursue revenge in the heat of
fight, may excuse him.

“The first thing for a captain is to gain
Safe victory; the next to be with honor slain,”

as Euripides says. For then he cannot be said to suffer death;
it is rather to be called an action. The very object, too, of
Pelopidas’s victory, which consisted in the slaughter of the tyrant,
presenting itself to his eyes, did not wholly carry him away
unadvisedly: he could not easily expect again to have another equally
glorious occasion for the exercise of his courage, in a noble and
honorable cause. But Marcellus, when it made little to his advantage,
and when no such violent ardor as present danger naturally calls out
transported him to passion, throwing himself into danger, fell into an
unexplored ambush; he, namely, who had borne five consulates, led three
triumphs, won the spoils and glories of kings and victories, to act the
part of a mere scout or sentinel, and to expose all his achievements to
be trod under foot by the mercenary Spaniards and Numidians, who sold
themselves and their lives to the Carthaginians; so that even they
themselves felt unworthy, and almost grudged themselves the unhoped for
success of having cut off, among a few Fregellan scouts, the most
valiant, the most potent, and most renowned of the Romans. Let no man
think that we have thus spoken out of a design to accuse these noble
men; it is merely an expression of frank indignation in their own
behalf, at seeing them thus wasting all their other virtues upon that
of bravery, and throwing away their lives, as if the loss would be only
felt by themselves, and not by their country, allies, and friends.

After Pelopidas’s death, his friends, for whom he died, made a
funeral for him; the enemies, by whom he had been killed, made one for
Marcellus. A noble and happy lot indeed the former, yet there is
something higher and greater in the admiration rendered by enemies to
the virtue that had been their own obstacle, than in the grateful
acknowledgments of friends. Since, in the one case, it is virtue alone
that challenges itself the honor; while, in the other, it may be rather
men’s personal profit and advantage that is the real origin of what
they do.